The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel

by Nikos Kazantzakis

  of sweat and wild deer’s musk dripped from their curly locks.

  But the king tired, and signaled for the games to stop

  that men and beasts might eat and rest beneath the shade.

  Conch-grass and oats were fed the bulls till their troughs brimmed, 375

  and as the Serpent Sisters stroked them with skilled hands,

  their male wrath sweetened with the maids’ caressing care.

  The Mountain Maidens stretched out panting in the shade,

  wiped off their muddy sweat, and then from the cool springs

  sprinkled their burning eyes and suffocating brows 380

  till in the shade they lightly steamed like scorching stones.

  The Holy Harlots with slaked lips, with easy virtue,

  scattered among the wealthy skippers, laughed with joy,

  and on the archons’ benches spilled their musk and wings.

  Then slowly from the palace kitchens, black slaves brought 385

  huge copper trays weighed down with even the milk of birds. 386

  In the high tiers the people sat in beating sun

  and gulped with greed their bread and olives, their crisp grapes.

  The ring was hushed awhile, then suddenly in the fields

  the crickets burst in song like needling, flaming rain, 390

  and slave girls with long peacock fans fell on their knees

  and beat the air that the court dames might eat with ease.

  The palace slaves stopped for a while to munch some bread

  and gather strength again for the hard work ahead;

  the mother left her handmill, rushed to her sick child, 395

  but in the infant’s nostrils, lips, and hollow eyes,

  the grim death-flies had poured their eggs, row after row.

  As it lay stretched on the damp ground and clenched its fists,

  its swollen belly shone with a dark poisonous green,

  but as the mother clasped it tight and searched it well, 400

  and found its body still quite warm, her sad eyes glowed,

  and she began to rock it slowly and press its lips

  against her sagging orphaned dugs, to give it suck.

  She stooped and stroked it lovingly, cooed like a dove,

  but all at once her wild eyes stared and her mind whirled. 405

  As the slaves turned, they saw her clutch her bundle tight,

  mount swiftly up the cellar stairs in a mute terror

  and rush in the day’s light to place her child in sun.

  Thick, filled with buzzing sound, the blazing noon beat down,

  and shadows gathered like black pitch in the tiled courts; 410

  the bronze bulls dripped with sun, the burning stones still steamed,

  crows cut through the pale sky and smelled with greed an earth

  that lay supine now like a pale worm-eaten corpse;

  and a small maiden, blond as wheat, moved slowly through

  deep violet shades, and picked a golden-rayed sunflower, 415

  then plucked each leaf and said, “He loves me, loves me not.”

  When the slave-mother saw her bloated child in sun,

  she uttered a wild wail and fainted on the tiles,

  but not one soul in all the bull-feast heard her cry,

  for all were sunk in noise and laughter, food and drink. 420

  Only the archer, hungry still, who watched the crowd

  with swollen, seething mind, pricked up his subtle ears

  as though he heard a cry pierce through the flaming light,

  fierce and convulsed, that called his name with sharp despair.

  He stretched his neck to hear who might be calling him 425

  and reared his panoplied dark head like a roused snake.

  The wind buzzed in the sun like an awakened hive

  with cries and weeping till the ears of the keen man

  gathered the scattered sounds like thick resounding shells,

  and as he dropped them in his silent heart, they fell 430

  deep in his loins where all burst in one cry: “Odysseus!”

  —as though he were responsible for all man’s pain,

  as though there were no other savior on all earth.

  His mind was suddenly seized with boundless joy and grief

  until his shoulders held the world, and not his head. 435

  He shook his mind till his thoughts fell in place once more.

  O heavy hour! Crickets rasped, crows tore through air,

  the sun at zenith stared on earth with savage eye,

  and the slave-mother’s cry was lost in the heat’s roar.

  The archer shut his eyes and held his quivering breath, 440

  for high above his body he felt the noon descend

  to his scorched brows, his throat, his guts, his hairy loins.

  The arena buzzed, and a thick stench of rot steamed up

  from the damp armpits, sweat-drenched hair, and fetid food.

  Handmaidens knelt and lengthened their court ladies’ eyes 445

  with black Arabian paint in light and skillful strokes,

  then swelled their breasts like roses with a secret salve.

  Diktena held her breath, and with swift stealthy strides

  slid through the crowd and plunged her crimson-painted nails

  in the dazed archer’s thick gray hair and curly beard, 450

  and when he raised his head, he shuddered deep to see

  the light-green, gleaming glance of her seductive eyes

  that laughed and played like lustrous pools under the moon;

  and then he heard her hoarse voice, choked with passion’s heat:

  “One night when you strode heavily in my father’s halls, 455

  I stood unspeaking by a column and watched you well;

  before me sat the rotting king, his eunuched guards,

  and the old senile skippers with their thick cosmetics

  as with your glance you tore our palace to its roots

  and gulped down bronze and gold like the hearth’s serpent-god 460

  till smoke rose spiraling from your blazing nostrils there.

  You glowed like a wild bull, and the fragmented moon

  hung down your flaming chest like a great talisman.

  Many the rich shipmaster and world-famous lord,

  white, yellow, or black slaves whom I allowed to moor, 465

  of my own will, at lustful midnight in my arms.

  They shrieked in spasms, but I lay unmoved like earth.

  Ah, when I marveled at your valor yesterday,

  a great voice rose and cried within my pulsing heart:

  ‘By the sweet lust that glues together man and maid, 470

  I swear to choose this stranger, risen from azure waves,

  to be my bull-god in the erotic holy rites.’ ”

  And as she spoke the archer felt her odors grasp

  his chest and loins and swiftly blunt his piercing eyes.

  He smiled to feel the nets of life draw round him tight, 475

  to feel the ancient thousand-year-old dragnet seize him,

  then reached his hands and with a bitter yearning stroked

  the harlot’s much-kissed knees and finely molded calves.

  Somewhere on ancient shores he’d seen the immortal gods

  shining in chiseled rock, their sacred knees worn out 480

  with too much kissing, smooth and lustrous like gold amber;

  and now with his flesh-loving hands he seized and licked

  the harlot’s glossy thighs with greed and brimming joy,

  then raised his head and plunged wide-eyed in the open net!

  But the dour bronzesmith watched his friend with mounting wrath: 485

  “For shame! Your bright eyes, great sea-eagle, have grown glazed!”

  The headstrong man’s gall rose as he rebuked the smith:

  “I may now taste unfearing the most deadly joys,

  the mo
st seductive sweets, for these can’t conquer now;

  small sterile souls alone before great passion quake!” 490

  His friend’s unyielding eyes glared at him stubbornly:

  “Master, I don’t mince words; I was born in a roofless house:

  the more a soul mounts toward its peak, so much the more

  does a cruel, joyless, unembraceable duty bind it.”

  Then the quick-tempered athlete seized his snapping friend: 495

  “O laughless bronzesmith, in a sun-drenched garden once

  a twisting vine entwined a column like harsh rope

  and climbed up, dry and withered, with no sprout or flower,

  but when it reached and clutched the top, it branched and spread

  and coiled about the capital with twists and turns, 500

  then burst one morning in a cluster of wild roses.

  Dry soul, when you too reach the top, you’ll burst in bloom!”

  He spoke, and stroked the damp curls on the harlot’s nape,

  Thus did the stubborn stoneheads clash, while in the ring

  pale Krino, moved by longing, gleaned fair Helen’s beauty. 505

  Her hands and eyes could not be slaked to see and touch

  the black-eyed beauty’s famous honey-golden flesh,

  and like a blind girl slowly groped at face and neck,

  at breasts and yielding thighs, at smooth-skinned ivory feet,

  till Helen tingled with the strokes of hungry hands, 510

  “Never have I enjoyed such sweet caresses, Krino,

  as now from your own virginal and virile palms!

  When I was but a blossoming girl of seven years

  a bearded gallant kissed me by the riverside.

  Ah, Krino, my notorious body has not since known 515

  such joy as that first kiss which now your kiss recalls!”

  The maiden’s lashes quivered and threw the world in shadow:

  “Life on this earth, O Helen, is sweet, unbearably sweet!”

  She hid her face between her knees and softly wept,

  and Helen wept, then took the chaste form in her arms 520

  till in the burning sun they both caressed and laughed with joy.

  As the Bull-King gazed on his hated daughter, Krino,

  who like a man clasped Helen tight in loving arms,

  he growled and roared in his black mask like a wild beast.

  The Negro slaves leapt up and pressed close to the throne, 525

  listened entranced to the bull’s head that hung above

  and fumed and rumbled as it gave its dread commands

  until their sallow eyes rolled in their heads, and glazed:

  Diktena leapt with fear, flew headlong down the stairs

  and gathered from the archons’ knees her amorous swarm, 530

  for she discerned how the black slaves approached with stealth

  the fierce man-killer, the most savage bull of all,

  and guessed the secret order of the jealous king.

  “They’ve fed the bull the intoxicating savage drink.

  Alas for vestal Krino! None can save her now!” 535

  And Krino, that chaste maiden, slowly raised her eyes,

  for suddenly in her bitter soul she felt her death.

  The world now seemed to her like freedom’s futile toy,

  and life winked in her mind like a small lightning flash,

  most short, most sweet, that quivers but to fade once more. 540

  Quickly she buckled on her belt and hurriedly tensed

  her lean and muscular arms, her strong and hardened calves,

  wound thrice about her hair a crimson cloth for crown,

  then fearless, stripped of hope, strode swiftly in Death’s ring.

  From the cool shade the Mountain Maidens leapt erect, 545

  but the king’s savage bull-mask roared with frantic rage:

  “keep back! Our vestal maid shall fight this bull alone!”

  The people shuddered, but the palace ladies laughed,

  for smell of virgin blood steamed in their nostrils now,

  and then the savage mystic rites of lust to follow! 550

  At this same hour on a far coast a fisher spread

  his tattered dragnets and began to mend them slowly,

  nor felt concerned for Helens, bullfights, or great kings,

  for here his whole wealth was composed of sea, a boat,

  and eyes that once roamed far but now were moored to land. 555

  Life was a short run on the sea, a boat packed full

  of dragnets, lobster traps, and octopus harpoons.

  We load our nets on board, the sails are set at dawn,

  a handful of smelts hooked, a bowl of fishstew sipped,

  and there goes life, a shipwreck plunged to the sea’s bottom. 560

  The battered fisher sighed, then raised his salty eyes

  and watched the sea for a long time that moved and swayed

  till like a flying fish his heart, too, leapt on waves.

  Meanwhile far off, life swelled and the court ladies glowed,

  for by the riverside the black slaves pricked the bull 565

  who stumbling, growling, turned his glazed and drunken eyes

  on the packed massive crowd and roared with frantic rage.

  The Mountain Maidens leapt and dashed into the ring,

  fearing to leave poor Krino to the Bull-God’s mercy,

  but the king blew his sea-conch, roared, and the maids fled. 570

  Slim as a switch, pale Krino stood in the shade and waited;

  the wild bull danced and leapt about her, women screamed,

  and cold and feverish tremors pulsed along their spines,

  for the bull gleamed in sun, a mortal, a beast, a god.

  From head to toe, like a lean spear, pale Krino swayed 575

  and balanced her unbridled body high on tiptoe,

  swinging it right or left to escape the touch of death.

  Deep silence in the ring, hearts throbbed in every throat,

  all turned to stone, and in the sun there steamed alone

  a mortal and a bestial body, like two quivering flames. 580

  The bull lunged swift as lightning, the dust swirled in clouds

  as Krino lightly swerved, and the bull crashed to its knees,

  but as it rose in fuming rage, the maiden leapt,

  grasped both its horns, then balanced, somersaulted high,

  and lightboned sat astride the brute beast’s sweating nape. 585

  The Bull-God stood stock-still, his hooves nailed to the ground,

  like blazing firedogs his red eyes rolled in rage

  seeking to find some place where he might smash her brains.

  But she had tightly wedged her head between his horns

  and glued her back to his, forming one compact body; 590

  the blood throbbed in her veins, the bull’s blood throbbed in rhythm,

  both bodies merged in one immense heartthrob of death,

  and the salt waters running down their hot thighs mingled.

  But suddenly as the maiden raised her eyes to the sky,

  her warm tears welled, then brimmed and tumbled down her cheeks 595

  till all at once her heart dropped in the abyss, and vanished.

  Her hands lost their firm grip, and her moist temples roared

  —it was as though the bowstring snapped which held her spirit—

  and as the maiden felt her end draw near, she broke

  in bitter wild lament and on the bull’s back swooned. 600

  And the wild beast, as though it felt the maiden’s swoon,

  spread its hooves wide on earth, gathered its savage strength,

  and ah, alas, tossed her lean body high in the air.

  The crowd turned pale and their dry tongues stuck in their throats;

  then, as a wild dove wounded in the sky falls tumbling, 605

  crumpled and torn, so on the go
d’s sharp double-ax

  raised high on a marble column, Krino fell impaled,

  and splattered the bronze cow with her warm brains and dripping blood.

  At last as earth grew cool and the black shadows lengthened,

  the twilight lay reposed in fields like a chaste bull, 610

  and in the olive leaves the crickets hushed their song.

  The thresher slowly gathered then his holy flock,

  his two exhausted ox, his goats, his sheep, his dogs,

  and all in sluggish kinship moved toward their poor hut.

  His humble bedmate lit the oil-lamp in the hearth 615

  then spread the low stool for their supper silently

  and brought the lukewarm water to wash her husband’s knees.

  Mother by mother taught, their wives had knelt like slaves

  to wash the hairy knees of their task-weary lords

  who rested and rejoiced like gods in their own yards. 620

  But as the plowman sat that night on his low wall

  and watched his plucky wife kneel down to wash his feet,

  he suddenly kicked the tub and sent the water splashing.

  “Dear wife,” he cried, “you’re not a slave to kneel before me!

  Know that from this time forth I’ll wash my feet myself.” 625

  He spoke, and with his words slew an ancestral ghost.

  Meanwhile long rows of shadows choked the festive palace,

  but stooped slaves still ground flour, workers swarmed like ants,

  and handmaids hurried in the setting sun to sort

  with skill the sacred garments for the secret rites. 630

  All’s well on earth; even the poor slave-mother found

  a tiny coffin made of clay for her small son;

  the twisting octopus she painted on his brow

  cast everywhere its tentacles, and clutched the tomb.

  She stooped and wrapped her son with fresh vine leaves, then thrust 635

  a cluster of ripe grapes in his pale hands and placed 636

  on his unbreathing chest a toy bronze pair of scales;

  on one small scale were painted worms wrapped in cocoons

  as though wrapped in their shrouds, who slept the sleep of death,

  but in the other scale had risen, transformed to butterflies. 640

  The mother unbared her head and looked at her young son

  wrapped tightly in his swaddling clothes like a cocoon,

  and her heart, choked by death, now dreamt of sprouting wings.

  One day a large all-golden butterfly would spring

  from earth and slowly flutter on the springtime; grass, 645

  and as the mother passed through flowering fields, her son

  would know her, and for a moment flit on her gray hair.